The Healing Touch
by Sakura Martinez
Summary: AU. What does it mean to have a friend? What does it mean to sacrifice for a friend? For Kouichi and Kouji, they both learn the meaning of friendship and sacrifice by carrying with them a secret that only the two of them know... Complete!
1. Chapter 1

**A Digimon Frontier Fantic**

**By Sakura Martinez**

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Well, I suddenly had the urge to write something in the first person view and after giving it much thought as to who the character I would write about be, I finally decided to write this fanfic and choose Kouji and Kouichi as characters from it.

I haven't actually tried writing First Person POV stories yet, so please, don't be too harsh about this one. Also, I made this a bit, if not very much, AU-ish to match with the plot.

The back story of the twins here are based off stories that were told to me by two of my dearest friends just so everyone knows.

Anyhow, please enjoy and don't forget to review and tell me what you think about it!

* * *

**The Healing Touch**

**Chapter 1**

* * *

There was a special class at school for the problem kids. Anyone out of the ordinary got dumped there: mentally challenged kids, kids who hadn't spoken for years, kids with handicaps that kept them out of regular classes. The special classroom was off in a corner of the campus, hidden from everyone. It had a special teacher, trained to take care of kids who couldn't tell the difference between candy and their coat buttons.

In the special class, age didn't matter. Anyone who didn't qualify as normal ended up there – no matter what grade they were supposed to be in.

One day, when we were going swimming for P.E., I had to take off my shirt in the locker room.

"I heard your dad gave you that," one of the other kids said, pointing to the scar on my back. He laughed, and everyone turned to look.

The scar was a few years old, but still red and obvious. My father had thrown an iron at me in a drunken rage. Normally I keep it covered up, since I don't like people staring.

I didn't respond, hoping he'd go away. No such luck.

"Is it true?" he said. "Your dad did that? That's just wrong."

Some of the other boys giggled. I clenched my fists until my knuckles went white. In the corner of the locker room was a long-handled brush for cleaning the floor; I grabbed it and before anyone could react, I started beating the kid who'd laughed at me. Before long, he was bleeding and begging me to stop, but I kept hitting him until someone pulled us apart.

The next day, the adults came to my house to check on the conditions there and talk about my "emotional deficiencies". From then on, I was put in the special class.

The teacher was a lady with glasses who would sit with younger kids and cut origami paper into colored rings. They'd made them into a chain so long that it covered most of the wall space of the classroom. She didn't want me; she told the principal she had too many to take care of already. I think she'd heard about me, too, and didn't want to deal with another violent outburst. It didn't matter in the end, since the principal ignored her.

For the first week, whenever she was around me, the teacher looked nervous. Like I was a time bomb that could explode at any minute. She seemed surprised when I didn't exhibit any violent behavior. When one of the younger kids knocked my lunch on the floor, I didn't even get angry with him.

"Doesn't it make you mad?" the teacher asked me.

"A bit." I shrugged. "He's just a first grader, though. He didn't mean it. And getting mad at him isn't going to help."

She shook her head. "It looks like the file was wrong about you," she said.

I liked the special class. None of the kids were mean. They didn't make fun of each other. Half of them couldn't even go to the bathroom by themselves; some of them couldn't talk, or were scared to death of something stupid. But they were all still trying to keep up with the normal kids, so they didn't have the time to laugh at other people.

In April, the special class got a new student. He was eleven – the same age as me – and had just been transferred from another school. He was in the special class because he refused to talk to anyone.

He was short and had pale skin, almost like a china doll. The teacher had to hold his hand and walk him into the classroom. He seemed really nervous.

His name was Kouichi.

* * *

In the special class, the teacher handed out an assignment to each person every day. We each got different work, based on how smart we were. Kouichi got the hardest assignments they had, but he still finished them easily. Despite his obvious intelligence, he never talked to anyone. He could do anything the teacher asked, but he wouldn't speak. During recess, he curled up in the corner of the room and read.

One day, I was called into the principal's office to discuss why one of the normal kids had bite marks on his arm. I told them he'd been bullying one of the special class kids, but they didn't care. The principal gave me a time-out in the corner of the office, and that seemed to satisfy the normal kid and his mother.

I sat in the office all day. Some of the people who dropped by gave me strange looks, but I ignored them. After a while they forgot I was there, and a couple of the teachers started talking about Kouichi's family. I carefully pretended not to hear.

"The new boy in the special class," a young teacher said. "He's the one from _that_ incident, isn't he?"

The other teacher nodded. "With his father dead and his mother in jail, he's been bouncing around from foster home to foster home. I think he's with some distant relatives at the moment."

I had no idea what they meant by _that _incident, but hearing the story made me feel closer to Kouichi. I knew what it was like, living in the house of someone you barely knew.

Until a month ago, I'd been living with my parents. My dad drank, and when he did, his temper was awful. In his rage, he would throw stuff at us and break things. He'd hit us, sometimes; once he got so mad that Mom and I ran out of the house without even stopping for our shoes. We walked around the block, over and over, until we thought he'd had enough time to calm down.

He used to work like everyone else's dad, but for a long time now he'd just been lying around the house. He'd changed. He used to have friends all over the neighborhood, but now they all hated him. He seemed to know it, too, and that just made him angrier.

My mom put up with it, but I could see the relief on her face when he checked into the hospital for good. He was really sick, and nothing was going to save him. For a while I thought it was the beginning of a better life for me and Mom, just the two of us… But one day she went out to the grocery store and never came back.

My aunt and uncle turned up when they found out I'd been abandoned. They pretended to be full of concern, eager to give me a normal life, but all they wanted was the house that my parents had owned. Once they were moved in, I was just an obstacle.

I'd accepted all this as the facts of life, but it made me feel like I understood Kouichi.

Everyone was happy to go home when the bell rang. A lot of special kids couldn't go home alone; they couldn't remember the way, or they'd be too scared on their own, so they waited for their parents to come and pick them up. Kouichi and I would wait around with them until long after dark, trying to postpone our return to what awaited us.

The classroom got quiet as people left, and the setting sun painted the campus orange. Little sounds echoed – footsteps or the thumb of a bouncing rubber ball. The shadows on the empty playground got longer and longer, twisting into a tangled maze. It was hard to believe the school was such a rowdy place during the day.

It was around the same time of day my mom ran away, just as the sun disappeared. I always ended up alone in the classroom with Kouichi. He would read, and I'd watch TV and draw or work on some craft project.

It was one of those quiet afternoons that Kouichi revealed his strange power.

* * *

I was carving wood with a knife. I've never been a very good student, but I loved art class. Once I'd done a carving of an owl, and the teacher thought it was brilliant; she praised me in front of the entire class and put it on the shelf for everyone to look at. It was pretty much the first time anyone had said something like that about me, so it made me happy.

That day, I was working on a carving of a dog. I'd been at it for a while, and there were shavings all over my desk and my clothes. Kouichi sat in the corner, lost in his book, and from time to time I'd look up at him. He was the same age as me, but so thin it looked like a strong wind could carry him away. He had soft, silky hair, and beautiful eyes that were totally absorbed in his reading.

The knife caught on a knot in the wood while I wasn't paying attention, and I put a little too much strength behind it. It slipped free and my hand jerked, slamming against the desk with a surprisingly loud bang. A line of bright red bloomed along my left arm, which had been holding the wood, and blood trickled down to my hand.

I jumped up and ran to get the first aid kit. It hurt quite a bit, but mostly I was afraid that the teacher would take the knife away from me because I had hurt myself. If that happened, I wouldn't get to finish my carving.

Kouichi stood as well. He moved to my side before I'd even remembered he was there. He so rarely did anything of his own volition that he was easy to forget. When he saw the cut on my arm, he turned pale and started to suck in air like he was choking.

"Are you okay?" I said, my own pain forgotten for the moment.

"I'm used to this kind of thing," he said. It was the first time I'd heard his voice; it was thin and shaky.

He grabbed my arm and pressed, making more blood trickled from the wound. I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do, and after a moment he gave up and let go.

"Sorry," he said. "I thought I could get the cut to close."

Apparently he'd been acting on instinct. It almost made sense that by pressing the skin around a cut back together, you could get it to heal. Sort of a wishful thinking, like kissing your finger when it was hurt or the ten-second rule for candy that fell on the ground. But, there was no easy fix.

I patted him on the shoulder, and he gave me a curious look. The first aid kit was on the shelf , and I opened it up to find the disinfectant. For some reason, the cut didn't look as bad as it had a moment before, and I wondered if Kouichi's little trick had actually accomplished something.

I looked up and found him staring at his own left arm. He'd rolled up his sleeve – his skin was fish-belly pale, like something that lived under a rock – and he had a cut of his own, nearly identical to mine. It wasn't deep, but it was in the same place and just the same shape.

"Did you cut yourself before?" I asked.

Mute, he shook his head.

I blinked. It was as though the cut had moved form my arm to his, making mine that much better. Apparently, Kouichi came to the same conclusion.

_That's impossible, though._

"Can I try that again?" he asked in a soft tone.

I chuckled weakly and held out my arm.

He pressed the cut closed, like before, and concentrated for a moment. A drop of blood fell, not from my arm but from _his_; his cut had gotten noticeably deeper, and mine was half as long as it had been before.

I pulled away, and Kouichi looked curiously at his own left arm.

"That's about half," he said. "Now we're even." It took me a moment to realize he was joking.

* * *

From that day on, we became friends, united by our shared secret. We didn't tell anyone else, of course, but we experimented to figure out exactly what he could do.

By pressing on any injury, Kouichi could move it to his own body. We confirmed that by staking out the nurses office and waylaying underclassmen with minor cuts, Kouichi could shift scraped elbows, bruised knees, and so on to himself, leaving the injured person untouched. With a little bit of practice, he could do it almost instantly – with the lightest touch. He didn't even have to touch the injured area, just the person in question. Unfortunately, our rests were cut short when the nurse noticed we were hanging out there and she banished us for a while.

"So, why are you in the special class?" Kouichi asked me one day after school.

I was a little hesitant to explain, but I told him about the scar on my back and my violent episode in the locker room. He look frightened by the time I was done.

I shook my head. "Are you scared of me, now?"

"Of course not!" He sounded surprised. "You're not scary at all."

"Sorry, you just looked--"

"Your _story_ was scary, that's all. And kind of sad."

We walked in silence for a moment and then he turned and grabbed my hand. His expression went suddenly distant.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I… just thought I'd try something." He turned away and didn't say anything else until we parted.

When I went home and changed clothes, I examined myself in my mother's full-length mirror. The scar was gone! It had appeared, I was certain, on Kouichi's back. It was proof that he could do more than shift little cuts around.

I confronted him about it the following day. "Give me back my scar!"

He just shook his head and smiled. I couldn't get him to budge, no matter what I said. We went back to our surreptitious practice, and before long he could move burns and old scars at will.

**To be Continued…**

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**A Digimon Frontier Fantic**

**By Sakura Martinez**

**A/N:**

Many thanks to Evide for posting a review on this fanfic as well as adding this fanfic to your Alert List, same goes to GeminiStar who also added The Healing Tough to the Alert List. Thanks also to DIGIFAN99 who added it to the Favorite List.

Anyways, this chapter is for all you guys and for the 51 hits on the hit counter (and hopefully it would continue to accumulate), hope you enjoy reading this!

**-- end of Author's Notes**

* * *

**The Healing Touch**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

My house was in the suburbs, in the poor part of town. It was part of a row of prefabricated homes, poorly built and poorly insulated; it was hotter inside than out in the summer, and every winter I thought I was going to freeze to death. The alleys between the houses weren't paved, so dust was everywhere when it was dry and they turned into mud pits in the rain.

Everywhere I looked there were little reminders of our poverty. Someone abandoned a tricycle in the road, months ago, and it was just left to rust. A little boy wearing nothing but underwear scraped drawings on the sidewalk with a rock. And then there was the smell – I've never been able to detect it, but people who pass through put their hands to their noses in disgust.

I didn't like to be at home on the days when we were off from school, so I'd walk through the town with Kouichi. We zigzagged all over the city, squeezing between buildings and through tiny back alleys.

There was a little park, so dirty that everyone else had abandoned it. We spent a lot of time there. It had a swing set and a seesaw, both of which had rusted into oblivion. Weeds were everywhere, along with a prodigious crop of broken glass bottles. Flaking spray paint adorned the nearby walls, and someone had dumped a tangle of barbed wire in the gutter. A veritable mountain of dead tires had accumulated, filled with stagnant rain water. It always smelled of wet rubber.

One Sunday, Kouichi and I were sitting on the swings when a young mother and her son passed by. I watched them idly. Right in front of the park, the child tripped and fell; blood welled from the knee and he shrieked despite his mother's efforts to comfort him.

Kouichi stood up.

"Leave him alone," I said.

He ignored me. Neither mother nor child noticed him until he gave the boy a soft pat on the head. In that instant, I knew, the scrape had moved to Kouichi's body. The boy's knee was filthy, but the skin underneath was whole again. The child stopped crying and looked puzzled.

The mother didn't understand exactly what was going on, but she knew Kouichi had done something and wanted to show her gratitude. She offered to buy the two of us ice cream, and we happily accepted.

There's a nice Ice Cream shop on the way home from school. I'd never been inside – I don't get an allowance, and neither does Kouichi, so we can't afford the sort of thing. We'd sometimes stare through the window, though, and fantasize about how the deserts would taste. It was a brick shop with round tables inside and a whole counter full of buckets of Ice Cream in every flavor imaginable.

Deciding on what flavor to get, now that we were finally going to get to try one, seemed like a life-or-death decision. Ultimately, I went with cookies and cream, and Kouichi chose bubblegum. We gave our orders to the young woman at the counter, and the mother paid; she left us to eat our ice cream in peace afterward, and the little boy waved to Kouichi and they departed.

We knew the woman who worked at the Ice Cream shop. She was something of an infamous figure among the kids; she always wore a sort of surgeon's mask that hid her face, and speculation was rampant about what she looked like underneath. I'd never seen her up close before, though.

For the moment, ice cream was more important. I tried to take my time, but ended up practically inhaling mine. Kouichi was slower, so I waited for him. To pass the time, I went back to the counter and looked at the other flavors.

The woman behind the counter was watching me. She had a scar, I noticed, some kind of a burn; the edge of it just peeked out from behind the mask.

"Hey," I said suddenly. "What do you do with the left over ice cream? Do you have to throw it away after a few days?"

She blinked. "Yeah, sometimes."

"Why not give it to us, then?"

"Nope. Sorry."

"Fine." It had been worth a shot, I figured. Kouichi had finished eating. "See you later, Sahiho."

"How do you know my name?"

"You're wearing a nametag, aren't you?"

Her badge read _Sahiho_ in English letters.

"You can read that?" she said.

"I smiled. "So, I'm not as stupid as I look."

She laughed; it was muffled behind the mask. "Tell you what. Help me clean up in here, and I'll let you have some leftovers."

Kouichi and I were happy to comply. No other customers wandered in while we wiped down the tables and stacked up the chairs. Once we were done, Sahiho gave us some ice cream.

At that point, we were ready to bond with anyone who offered us food, like stray dogs, so we quickly became attached to Sahiho. We started visiting her shop every day, and after everyone had left, we'd help her clean up and collect our reward in ice cream. We got to know her pretty well; she was nice, for an adult, and was always willing to listen to our stories. Sahiho had big, beautiful eyes – the only thing visible above the mask. They sparkled when she laughed, so I tried to come up with funny stories to make her laugh as often as I could.

Kouichi talked to Sahiho just a little bit at first, but more as time went on. He even started talking to the other kids in the special class, over time. I thought it was a change for the better.

* * *

Every time Kouichi took away someone else's pain, his own collection of injuries grew. His arms were covered with half-healed cuts and scars, and he wouldn't even let me look at his stomach. He refused to change in front of anyone. I didn't think it was  
good for him, so I told him not to use his power unless it was absolutely necessary.

One day, at the ice cream shop, we were leaning on the counter and talking with Sahiho. She was minding the store alone, as usual; the real owner hated kids and would leave her there for hours at a time while he went off to gamble.

Kouichi was too short to lean on the counter, so he stood on his toes and rested his chin on it. Sahiho grabbed his hand.

"What happened to you, Kouichi?" There was a cut on his palm, a relatively deep one. "Are you okay?"

He must have healed someone on the way over, but I hadn't noticed. Kouichi didn't seem to mind the cuts and bruises; he'd usually leave them alone unless they were bleeding badly. Sahiho made a big fuss, though, and dug a cute cartoon band-aid out of her purse for him. It seemed to make Kouichi happy. He thanked her sincerely and kept it on for days, even after the cut itself had vanished.

* * *

There was this kid at school I really hated. He was a few years older than me, tall with vicious, mad-dog eyes. His gang never seemed to leave his side. Every time I passed him in the halls or on the street, I flinched; I kept expecting him to sneak up on me and flatten me when I wasn't looking.

He had good reason to have it in for me. A few years back, he'd been making fun of my dad – everyone in the neighborhood hated my dad, and I was tainted by association. I'd gotten so mad that I pushed him out of a second-story classroom window.

Thankfully, he'd graduated from elementary school since then, so I didn't have to see him everyday. I thought he'd forgotten me until I ran into him on the way to the Ice Cream shop. Kouichi and I were heading there after school, like we always did, and the kid was standing there in his black school uniform, waiting for us.

I tried to ignore him. He was older than me, bigger and stronger; nothing good could come out of messing with him. But he smiled as I walked past, and said, "Hey, kid. I heard about your mom."

I clenched my fist and walked faster.

"I heard she–"

I'm not going to repeat what he said, but it was enough to make me completely lose my cool. I leapt at him, all caution gone. That was exactly what he wanted, of course. He had a metal bat with him – I think he was on the baseball team – and he sidestepped my clumsy punch and swung it at my head. I blocked it with my arm and there was a terrific _crunch_. I dropped to the ground, screaming in pain, and the kid looked on with a smile.

Kouichi, who'd been watching blankly, ran forward. He touched my arm before I could stop him, and my pain vanished instantly. At the same time, there was an audible _crack_ as the bone in Kouichi's arm shattered, but he remained expressionless.

I took a long, sobbing breath and raised my head, "Kouichi?"

He wasn't paying any attention. Instead, he stumbled toward the guy with the bat. He looked tiny and pathetic juxtaposed with the thug's bulky frame. The kid didn't understand what was going on, and I'm not sure Kouichi really knew either; he reached out to touch the kid's arm, and the tough baseball player fell to his knees with a shriek. His arm flopped on the pavement – it had one extra bend above the elbow.

Kouichi had moved the injury from me to the kid, I realized. _The jerk broke his own arm with that bat_. That was the moment we discovered the second part of his strange ability: he could give his own injuries to others.

Hearing the kid in pain scared Kouichi back to his senses. He looked horrified that he'd hurt someone, and I quickly grabbed his hand and dragged him away from the scene. If I'd left him there, he probably would have taken the broken arm back.

_If he can move his own injuries,_ I thought, _he should get rid of everything! Just dump it all on someone else, so he doesn't have to suffer through the cuts and scars_. I knew the perfect target, too: my dad. No one cared what he went through, least of all me, and to top it off he was going to die soon in any case. _Perfect_.

* * *

It didn't take long to get to the hospital where they were keeping Dad. It was a big place, within walking distance of the town. The entrance was marked by a bronze statue of a boy playing a trumpet, surrounded by a host of enraptured birds. The boy somehow reminded me of Kouichi.

I didn't know what room my dad was in – I'd never visited him before – so we had to ask a nurse. Once we found it, I paused. Suddenly, irrationally, I was afraid – as though my dad were going to leap out of bed and beat me black and blue one last time. I tiptoed forward and peeked past the door. He was asleep in a hospital bed, connected to a forest of tubes and wires.

The doctors had told us that he might never wake up, which was just fine by me.

"Go ahead, Kouichi."

I posted myself as lookout while Kouichi hesitantly approached the bed. I was a little worried that he might not be able to do it, since he didn't like to hurt anyone, but I'd carefully explained that my dad was asleep and would probably never feel a thing. It only took a second. He touched my dad's hand lightly and in an instant all of Kouichi's injuries were gone.

Once we'd found a "dumping ground" and confirmed that it worked, we went back to experimenting. There were all kinds of people in the hospital, and a lot of them were in pain or permanently scarred. I would talk to them, make them promise to keep everything a secret, and then Kouichi would take care of the rest. We limited our subjects to kids, since I was pretty sure they wouldn't tell on us; even if they did, the adults wouldn't believe them.

Most people were pretty reluctant, up until the point where their burns and surgical scars vanished as if they'd never existed. Then they were ecstatic. We never asked for anything, but sometimes they'd give us money anyway, enough to keep us rolling in ice cream and candy.

Kouichi never hesitated to move someone's injuries to himself. He seemed to think that if someone had to be hurt, it might as well be him. Looking at someone in pain was hard for him to bear. I was glad I'd convinced him to use my dad, or else one visit to the hospital could have killed him. There were some things he couldn't move, like illness, and being unable to help those people sometimes brought Kouichi to the brink of depression.

Despite that, the kids thought we were heroes. We got to visit Sahiho every day, and now we were able to pay for our own ice cream. I tried to keep Kouichi's spirits up – I think Sahiho and I were the only ones who ever saw him smile.

We'd meet Sahiho after she was done with work and walk to the run-down park, where she'd push Kouichi on the swings. I didn't hold her hand on the way – I was eleven, much too old to be holding hands with a girl – but Kouichi clung to her side.

The three of us would talk about silly things, like the worst lie we'd ever told, the worst-tasting food we'd ever eaten, or what the best way to die would be if we had to choose.

"I'd want a lover's suicide," Sahiho said. "It's so romantic."

"Something lonely and cold," I said. "An abandoned train station, maybe."

"I want…" Kouichi trailed off. He didn't want to think about it, for which I didn't blame him. The sky grew darker and we headed home, with Kouichi trailing behind Sahiho just like always.

She was fond of him. Sahiho had a younger brother, she'd told me, who'd died in the same fire during which she'd gotten her scar. I think he looked like Kouichi.

In all the time we'd known her, she'd never taken off her mask. I decided to ask her about it, then and there, when we paused at the intersection where we had to part ways.

"Sahiho, I want to see your face."

For a moment I thought she was going to argue, but she put her fingers through the straps of the mask without a word and gave it a tug. Before she could get it off, she was shaking; finally she pulled her hand away and shook her head, gasping for breath.

"I'm sorry," Sahiho said. "I… I can't."

Kouichi reached out to her. They held hands al the time, but this was different; I grabbed him before he could touch her. I knew what he wanted to do, but we had to wait. If Kouichi moved her scar, it would end up on his face; even if we transferred it to my dad, it would be on _his_ face. Most of the injuries we'd given Dad were minor cuts and scars. Since he was covered in blankets up to his neck, no one had been able to tell the difference. But if we gave him a big facial scar, we'd get busted. I knew we had to keep Kouichi's power a secret from the adults; if they found out, there was no telling what they'd do.

Sahiho apologized again and walked away. She didn't know the secret, so my behavior probably seemed strange to her.

"We'll help her," I told Kouichi. "Not yet. But soon."

* * *

**To be Continued…**

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**A Digimon Frontier Fantic**

**By Sakura Martinez**

**A/N:**

I guess I have to add some more people here in my 'Thank You' list, lol.

So, here it goes:

First, thanks to Evide for reviewing the previous chapter as well. I am glad that you are enjoying this story, and thank you for that very, long and chunky review, lol.

Next, Light's Blue Blossom, yes, I have changed my penname due to some reasons and I am glad you find this interesting. I made this story to act as an experiment story on how well I could pull off an AU and a First Person POV story, so I made sure that it is short: Five chapters to be exact.

Then we have the anonymous reviewer, I didn't realize I was actually writing them in their own character in this one since I had thought of making them AU-ish, as for them acting less matured than in the show, well… can't say much to that…lol

To amberkittie, Thank you for the compliment on this fanfic. I'm glad you guys are liking it.

For those who added the fanfic to your Favorite List, namely for DIGIFAN99 and amberkittie, thank you so much for doing so. The same goes for those who added this to their story alert lists: Evide, Gemini Star01, Neko-Zordaray, amberkittie, and terracannon876, thank you for wanting to stay updated with this and for reading this fanfic as well. I appreciate it guys so much!

Anyways, with all that thanks out of the way, it's time to proceed with the third chapter of our story, The Healing Touch. Enjoy!

P.S

Oh, and don't forget to review afterwards!

**-- end of Author's Notes**

* * *

**The Healing Touch**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

One day, when Kouichi was out from school with a cold, the teacher asked me to take something to his house. It was a note asking whether anyone would be attending for Parent's Day; in the normal classes, that wasn't a big deal, but it was different in the special class.

I'd asked the teacher about it the week before. "Most of the kids here can't even do their work, so why are we inviting parents in to watch them?"

"Even if the kids can't do everything," the teacher said, "we want the parents to see how hard they're trying. Raising a child with special needs can be very hard on the parents. It's nice for them to see that the kids are working hard, too."

That made sense, sort of.

"But I don't think anyone will come for me or Kouichi," I said.

The teacher frowned and said nothing.

The day she gave me the note, I headed to Kouichi's house after school.

I knew where it was, though I'd never bee there. Kouichi didn't seem to want me to come over, and I'd never pressed him.

Note in hand, I rang the bell. It looked like a normal house, the same as the ones on either side. The nameplate beside the front door had a different last name than Kouichi's.

A middle-aged woman answered the door. She gave me a puzzled look. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Kouichi's friend," I said. "I brought this for him. It's from the teacher."

She nodded and invited me in. Everything looked normal – there was a sofa and a TV in the living room, and Kouichi's bedroom was upstairs.

Kouichi seemed confused to see me at first, but then his face lit up.

"You came!" he said happily.

The woman left us alone. I could hear other kids in the house; Kouichi had a foster brother and sister, I remembered.

I told him about what the teacher had said about Parents' Day and I gave him the note. He nodded thoughtfully.

The door opened with a crack.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?" The woman asked me.

Knowing my aunt and uncle, there wasn't going to be much waiting for me at home, so I agreed.

"Kouichi," she said, "get cleaned up. You should have taken a bath before your friend got here, don't you think?" Catching my expression, she explained. "I tried to give him a bath today, but he refused to take his clothes off. Sometimes I don't know what's wrong with him…"

After she left, I said, "You took somebody's cut today, didn't you?"

He nodded.

I sat next to Kouichi that night at dinner. Everyone else had already eaten, so we were the only ones at the table. No one seemed to pay any attention to him in that house, as long as he was fed and stayed clean; he moved through their family like a ghost.

"He's had it so hard, you know." The woman sat down to talk to me as we were finishing up. _I guess she finished her housework._ I noticed Kouichi was shaking.

"Hard?" I said.

"Didn't you know? His mother killed his father, and then stabbed him with a butcher knife. He almost died in surgery."

She said this cheerfully, as though her grisly story was just the latest neighborhood gossip and Kouichi wasn't sitting right beside me. She talked about how horrible it was, and how Kouichi's mother was just a regular housewife and she had no _idea_ what made her do it, and on and on until I couldn't take it anymore. I jumped up from the table and grabbed her collar.

"Don't you see what this is doing to him?" I hissed. She looked into my eyes, a little frightened, and I let go of her in disgust. "Just don't talk about it again. Or else…"

* * *

I'm not sure if I left the house or I was kicked out – it happened so fast. It was a long, dark road back to my aunt and uncle's house, and all I could think about was the smug look on the woman's face as she recounted Kouichi's tragedy. Most of the streetlamps had burnt out, and the alley I took to get home was full of looming shadows. There was a dead dog lying under someone's porch; I had first noticed it days ago, when it had crawled there to die, and no one had cleaned it up yet. The sky was a uniform gray, empty of stars, and the air stank of the dirty river.

I thought about my dad. We'd been visiting him a lot to dump injuries on him, but I made an effort never to get within ten feet of his bed. I'd watched Kouichi touch him, though, moving painfully with whatever injury he'd taken on until he gently brushed Dad's cheek. My father's comatose form gave no evidence that he felt any pain.

Everyone hated my dad. He was a drunk, alternately violent and depressed. Nobody wanted to help him; when he finally got sick, everyone said he was better off. Even after that, though, he was the source of all my problems. Because of his bad reputation, the tough kids at school picked on me, and I got into a lot of fights. The teachers knew about him, too, and so they were biased against me. It all came back to my dad, and I hated him.

But I also had memories from when he was still kind, before the violence started. He used to work, and tried to make Mom and me happy. I remember him patting me on the head while I watched him work on building a doghouse once. This was at our old place, which had an actual yard with grass. I don't remember the dog, but I was pretty young. All I remember is Dad smiling at me while he worked.

Who knows if that scene was ever real? Memory is tricky that way. I try to tell myself that it happened, but when I think about how my dad is now, it's hard to believe. I'm not sure if we even _had_ a dog. If we did, you'd think I'd be able to remember it.

In the dark, I touched the smooth skin on my back where the scar used to be. For some reason, it made me feel sad. It was a keepsake from when Dad threw an iron at me, and now Kouichi had moved it to my father's back.

* * *

The next day, Sahiho was very depressed when she got off from work. We sat on the rusty swings at the park as usual, but she didn't seem to be able to raise her head.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"There are things in this world," Sahiho said quietly, "that are worse than you can imagine."

She patted Kouichi on the head affectionately, but her gaze seemed distant, sad. I sat there, frozen by her words, not sure what to say. Kouichi wanted to cheer her up; he started explaining about his power. The words spilled out in a rush, clumsy and run together. She was the first adult we'd ever told.

At first, she was barely listening. Finally, Kouichi said, "I could probably move your burn if you wanted."

Sahiho's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"I think so. Then it would be on me, though." Kouichi said.

"Tell you what. Would you take it, just for a few days? I've always wanted to walk around town without a mask, just once."

Kouichi nodded slowly. My stomach churned, but I couldn't bring myself to intervene. _Just a few days. She deserves that much, doesn't she?_

Sahiho faced Kouichi and he reached out to touch her cheek. The air suddenly smelled like burnt meat. Quicker than it takes to blink, the skin on Kouichi's face was twisted and gnarled into a horrible scar.

Sahiho pulled her mask down slowly, as though in disbelief. Her scar was gone. Without it, she was beautiful. I put my arm around Kouichi; it was hard to look at him, but I was proud that we'd been able to give Sahiho at least a few days of happiness…

* * *

Three days passed. Sahiho left town and never came back.

People had always been friendly to Kouichi, even if he wouldn't talk to them; he had a pretty face and an almost cherubic expression. Once he was wearing Sahiho's scar, though, everything changed. Even the people we'd helped, people who'd had a lifetime of scars removed from their bodies, turned their backs on him. I had no choice but to make Kouichi wear a mask, just like Sahiho. Even _I_ had trouble looking at him without one.

I wonder what his family thought about it. I asked him, but he wouldn't reply.

The next day, after school, we said goodbye to our teacher and walked home just as the sun was going down. It painted the sky red, and the deep black shadows of the trees made me feel like I was walking through a painting. The streetlights clicked on, and the balmy air felt calming.

Kouichi stopped in front of a house. It was a regular house, one o the ones we always passed on the way home, but tonight the lights were on inside and I could see a woman making dinner. The smell wafted out, warm and delicious; it made me think of my mother.

Kouichi fell to his knees and started crying softly. He must have been thinking the same thing. "Do you think my mother didn't want me?" He said.

I took his hand and tried to coax him to walk again. "Don't say things like that. You're going to live with her again when she gets out of prison, right?"

He blinked away tears. "Why didn't Sahiho come back?"

I paused. "She couldn't take it anymore. It was an awful thing to do, but I'm not sure I blame her."

Kouichi stumbled to his feet and walked beside me, but he stared blankly into the distance. "Why is life so painful?" he muttered.

I didn't have a good answer for that. I held his hand until we got to the place where we had to separate, and then I went home. When I got there, my uncle gave me a box he'd filled with Dad's old stuff from the house. It was junk, he said, and I should get rid of it. It was so heavy I had to rest several times on the way to the dump.

In my neighborhood, the dump was just an empty lot overgrown with weeds. There was a big hole dug in the center, and people were slowly filling it up with things they didn't want anymore. The smell was awful, and a swarm of tiny, biting flies came after me as soon as I got close. I held my nose and dragged the box to the edge of the hole. When I turned it upside down, my Dad's old clothes and shoes came tumbling out and were swallowed by the malodorous darkness. Something small got caught on the edge of the hole; I thought about kicking it in, but the bugs had gotten so bad I had to flee.

It took me hours to get to sleep when I got back, even after I'd cleaned up. I couldn't help but feel like I'd done something bad by throwing away my Dad's stuff, even if he was a no-good lowlife.

* * *

The next day, I went back to the hospital with Kouichi. The weather was dreary, and the clouds were smokestack-black. I heard on my uncle's radio that it was going to rain by that afternoon.

Kouichi was quiet, as usual. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and pants, showing as little skin as he could manage. His face was hidden behind a huge surgeon's mask.

A little ways away from the bronze statue that marked the hospital's main entrance, there was a small hill with an ambulance bay at the top. As long as there were no incoming ambulances, it was virtually abandoned, so it was a good place to talk in private. Kouichi and I crouched in the shrubbery.

"You have to move the scar to my dad," I told him.

I couldn't bear leaving him like this. Moving it to my dad was the only choice; people might think it was strange, but they wouldn't suspect _us_. All we had to do was play dumb.

"But…" Kouichi hesitated.

"There's no other way! You can't keep walking around like this."

I grabbed his hand without waiting for him to answer and dragged him into the hospital. We didn't say a word the whole way to my dad's room. There was a doctor in the elevator with us, but he rushed out in a hurry, as though a patient somewhere were in trouble.

I thought about my dad. Even if he weren't sick, he probably wouldn't visit the school on Parents' Day. The teacher had said she wanted to show the parents how well their children were doing, but who would want to come see me and Kouichi? Nobody cared whether we went to school or dropped out… whether we lived or died.

We followed the doctor as he hurried down the hallway. A nurse waved him onward, holding open a door; as we approached, I realized it was the door to my dad's room. I left Kouichi back and peeked around the door, only to find the doctor and the nurse looking back at me.

"Who are you?" the doctor said brusquely. I ignored him and walked up to the bed. It was the first time I'd looked at my dad's face up close, and I almost didn't recognize him. He was horribly thin, with sunken cheeks, and the bones in his face were clearly visible.

I felt my anger melting away. He was dead, and I couldn't hate him anymore. I felt sorry for him, even. He died alone, with no one to mourn.

He was a horrible person while he was alive, and he screwed up my life beyond recognition. But I realized that if I turned away, he really would be alone. I had to feel sad, because there was no one else to do it. I put my head on his chest and sobbed; for all my hatred, it still hurt to see him like this.

Kouichi was standing next to me when I lifted my head.

""Move all the scars on me," I said. I didn't want them to find my dad with all that pain on his body.

Kouichi shook his head. "I can't."

"But--!"

He turned and ran. I took a step after him, then looked back at my father. His blanket was pulled back, enough to expose his arm and take a pulse. It was clean, without a mark on it. I stared blankly for a second, then I suddenly understood.

Kouichi had been lying to me. He claimed he'd moved everything to my father, but he'd kept it all on himself. I pulled the blanket back and tore my father's pajama shirt open; even the scar from his surgery was gone.

"You…" the doctor began, not sure what to say.

I ran after Kouichi. He'd fooled me, over and over. He always wore long sleeves and pants, and I'd never asked him to show me that the scars were gone. I'd never asked for proof of anything! All this time he'd been taking the pain and suffering of everyone we'd met and locking them away in his own body.

* * *

**To be Continued…**

**A/N:  
**Okay, this would be my first time writing a post author's note in this fanfic, so bear with me.  
Anyways, when I wrote this chapter, I decided to go with realism. IF you look around to what's happening around us, you would realize that a lot of the things written here are true.  
I have a feeling some people liked the characted Sahiho, and are probably upset with how I made this fanfic go. BUT I will say again that I made it so with realism in mind. The backstory of the characters here, as I may or may not have noted before, were based off a story that a friend of mine told me a while back. Of course, I asked that person's permission if I could use that person's story and make a fanfic out of it using Kouichi and Kouji and that person agreed, thus, the birth of this story... so you can say, this is a bit of a true-to-life story (minus of course, the healing powers and all those along that line, that's just something I added to make this story more interesting).  
Anyways, that's about all the explanation for now as I am getting hungry... See you guys again in the next chapter, and don't forget to review, okay? PEACE!!


	4. Chapter 4

**A Digimon Frontier Fanfic**

**By Sakura Martinez**

**Author's Note:**

Well, first off, my apology for not having been able to update any of my fanfics for the past week(s). I had been once again pretty much busy thanks to the fact that I'd been hired as a writer to help write the story for a game that a couple of people, who are into game making as myself, had teamed up and planned to do. Add to that, I am also the one who is making the sprites (Characters) for the said game so my schedule has been pretty tight. Luckily, I managed to get a break from it and thus, make an update albeit short for this fanfic.

Well, thank you everyone for the 252 hits you've given the story (as I make this chapter) and for Blonde-Eko, Elemacil, and amberkittie for adding this fanfic to their Favorite lists. To Blonde-Eko, once again, thanks for adding this as well to your Alert list (same goes to the other people whom I've already thanked in the previous chapter.).

Now, to answer some of your reviews:

anonymous who reviewed last April 18: Well, I didn't mean to surprise you or anyone with Kouji's reaction to her leaving, I just thought that it would add a bit more 'spice', so to speak, to the story and add a bit more personality to him.

Evide who reviewed last April 18: Thank you for the kind words and encouragement, lol. That was one of my objectives in this story: to highlight as much realism into it as possible, excluding the fact that one of them has the power to take the pain of others and put it in himself…

Light's Blue Blossom who reviewed last April 18: lol, was it that obvious that Sahiho was going to run off as she did? Thanks for thinking that this is a nice fanfic. And here is the update, lol.

Squids who reviewed last April 22: lol, thanks for the compliments to this fanfic. Though this is not going to be as long as my other fanfics (the next chapter after this is the last) I am hoping that you and everyone who reads this enjoys it.

Blonde-Eko who reviewed this fanfic last April 27: Thanks for loving the story and for your compliments in my writing ability as well. I hope you continue to enjoy this chapter and this fanfic as a whole as well.

With those thanks and replies out of the way, now comes the actual content of this update. Here's chapter four of the Healing Touch. I hope you guys enjoy it!

* * *

**The Healing Touch**

**Chapter 4**

* * *

I found Kouichi at the main entrance of the hospital, by the bronze statue of the boy playing the trumpet. He was reaching out to a girl around his age. She had a cast on her arm. When he touched her, I heard a _snap_ as Kouichi's bone broke, but his eyes showed no sign of pain.

The girl ran off, only glancing back briefly at Kouichi. I wondered when she'd figure out that she'd experienced a miracle.

I felt a spot of cold on my cheek, and a moment later, rain spattered across the dry concrete. There was no one around, just me and Kouichi. He leaned on the statue, too tired to support himself, sucking in air with shallow breath. He tore off the mask, and I saw that Sahiho's scar was overlaid by other cuts and bruises that made his face puffy and swollen. I fought the urge to look away.

I'd found him by following the trail of strange stories from my dad's room; people who turned up at the hospital for treatment and suddenly felt no more pain – a girl whose giant scar was missing, a mother hugging her instantly healed child… None of them had noticed the passage of a little boy riddled with injuries.

He closed his eyes as he leaned against the statue. One eyelid flickered; the bruise there wouldn't let it close all the way.

"Why?" I demanded. "Why did you do this?"

"If someone has to be in pain," he said softly, "better it be me." Kouichi hesitated. "I'm the one who isn't wanted."

"What do you mean?"

"Look."

The rain was coming down hard now but Kouichi shrugged off his jacket and pulled up his shirt. His chest had so many cuts, scars, and patches of discolored skin that he looked barely human. It was pure suffering, the pain of an entire community, compressed into one small body. I could almost hear this tortured boy cry out with the sobs of a multitude of people.

"The night Mom killed Dad—" Kouichi began, then stopped. His brow furrowed. His hair was slick with rain. "She came into my bedroom, too. She had a knife in her hand…"

He rain his fingers across a huge scar on his belly. It was from the incident his foster mother had talked about, I'd realized. He'd always been careful to hide it.

I heard ambulance sirens in the distance. A horrible premonition crept over me.

Kouichi's left arm dangled, seemingly nerveless; he clutched himself with his right hand. He had to force his words out, past choking sobs. "I… I don't want to live any longer."

_Suicide. Of course._ Kouichi wanted the pain; he wanted everything to end. He would be the ultimate repository for all these people, and in death he'd take their pain away forever.

Desperate, I started talking. "Look, Kouichi. I don't know why your mom wanted to kill you, but it doesn't mean you're not wanted. You're just unlucky. Your mom had her own reasons, her own problems – just like Sahiho; just like my mom. That's all."

The rain fell harder. Kouichi looked up at me with sad eyes. The approaching sirens became deafening. I saw the red lights of the ambulance getting closer, glittering on the wet pavement.

The doctors stood there, waiting as it pulled up. They opened the back doors and removed the gurney. Kouichi turned his back on me and started to limp toward them. The pain of dozens of people wracked his body; he could barely move, barely even stand, but he pushed onward. My eyes picked out a familiar scar on his naked back, the scar he'd taken from me. Kouichi receded into the flashing lights, until he seemed like nothing more than a shadow.

"Kouichi!"

He ignored my shout and kept walking. I hurried after hum; he was easy to catch, and I grabbed his thin shoulders and held him back by force.

"I'm sorry," Kouichi whispered, his voice full of guilt. Sharp pain suddenly stabbed through both my legs… All the injuries that had been dumped onto Kouichi's legs were now on mine. I toppled, unable to stand, and he shook off my hands. I wanted to cry. Kkouichi, who wouldn't hurt anyone, was willing to dump his pain on me in order to die.

I lay on the ground, looking up through the haze of the rain. Up on the slope, the doctors unloaded the gurney. I could see an accident victim lying on it, a little boy, covered in blood from head to toe. He looked like he was dead already.

Kouichi stepped up beside him. I knew what he was going to do, and what it would cost; with the injuries he'd taken from so many others, accepting the boy's pain would kill him.

"Stop!" I crawled towards him, dragging myself along by my elbows. The adults looked up, but Kouichi was already too close. He laid a hand on the blood-drenched boy's cheek. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful. In an instant, Kouichi's body collapsed like a house of cards, folding in on itself with a horrible _crack-crack-crack_ of bones. I screamed as he fell to the ground like a rag doll.

Sheer adrenaline gave me strength enough to overcome the pain in my legs, and I pushed myself up and ran to his side. The adults had no idea what was going on, so they clustered around Kouichi; I pushed through them and cradled him against my chest. His tiny frame, limp and broken, had carried the pain of so many people. Tears streamed down my face and mixed with the rain.

"Kouichi?"

When I spoke his name, his eyes opened slightly. He was still there, but I could feel him fading away. I grabbed his had.

"Split it between us," I begged. "Half and half, okay?"

He stared at me without any expression on his face. Blood leaked from his body and washed away in the rain.

None of us have the power to avoid misfortune, or change our fate. That was true of Kouichi's mom as it was of the rest of us; I don't know why she tried to kill him, but I'm sure that in her mind she didn't have a choice.

_That sort of thing shouldn't exist,_ I prayed. _Everyone should have a choice_.

My eyes closed.

**

* * *

**

**To be continued…**

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**A Digimon Frontier Fanfic**

**By Sakura Martinez**

**Author's Note:**

I guess people didn't like the previous chapter too much. Anyways, as this is the fanfic finale, I will leave the longer Author's Note after the whole chapter. With that said, hope this ending would suit everyone's taste.

**

* * *

**

**The Healing Touch**

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"You still won't tell me what happened?" my teacher asked. She'd come to visit me in the hospital.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said. "Besides, it's a secret."

By the time I woke up, five days have passed. My body was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, and my limbs were in casts. Once, I tried to stand, but I could only flail vainly, so a nurse quickly pushed me back into bed.

"Did your aunt and uncle come to visit you?" my teacher pressed. "Is everything okay?"

I nodded.

At first, all the doctors seemed suspicious of me, since no one had any idea how I'd been injured. They even had the police in to question me, but there was no evidence of foul play. After a while, they gave up and I was just another patient in the hospital.

"All the kids in class miss you," my teacher said. "So get better quick."

"You don't have to try and make me feel better. No one there would miss me."

She looked surprised. "Of course they do! Everyone in the special class looks up to you."

I didn't have a reply.

After a moment the teacher started gathering her things. "Say hi to Kouichi for me," she said, "once he wakes up."

With extreme effort, I turned my head to look at the next bed over, where Kouichi was sleeping amidst crisp, white sheets.

"I will." I said.

* * *

Thankfully, I could move my right hand. My left was in a cast, but the fingers were free, so I could at least grip a block of wood. I kept working on the wooden dog I'd started before this whole thing began. It had been a while, but I wanted to finish. The shavings made a small pile on the bed. The nurse frowned at the mess I made, but they let me work. My hands had almost no strength, so it was slow going.

The day I finished the dog, I remembered something that had been bothering me. I was recovered enough to walk around a bit, so after I'd made sure the nurse wasn't looking, I clambered out of bed.

"I'm going out for a while." I told Kouichi.

"I'll go too!"

"Don't be stupid. You need to stay in bed."

The corridor was empty, so I managed to escape from the hospital. I still need crutches to walk, and every step sent sharp pains through my legs. My forehead was quickly drenched with sweat.

By the time I made it all the way through the town and down to the dump, the sky started reddening. I found the whole where I'd tossed my dad's stuff. I lay down on my stomach, ignoring the pain from my stitches. Something had caught on the edge of the hole, and I felt around until I put my fingers on it. It was a dog collar – our dog's collar. The wooden dog had reminded me.

I still can't remember what kind of dog we had. But it was proof hat I hadn't imagined the memory of my dad being normal and building our doghouse. It wasn't something I'd simply wished for; it was real. I clutched the collar to my chest as I made my way back to the hospital. The nurse scolded me, but I didn't mind.

The next day dawned bright and beautiful. Kouichi wanted to go on the hospital's roof, so I broke out for the second day in a row. The nurses would definitely label me a troublemaker.

The stairs to the roof were stuffy and dim, and we took extra time climbing them because of our crutches. We were both sweating by the time we got to the top. A tiny window let in enough light to make out a rusted iron door. I pushed it open, and the light that streamed in was blinding. The roof was flat and vast, and it made me sorry that I couldn't run. A half-dozen bed sheets dried on a clothesline.

We stepped outside, shading our eyes against the sun. I could see the whole town – the school, the ice cream shop, the park where we used to play. It all looked so tiny; it was hard to believe we'd spend our lives here.

Kouichi looked around in amazement, his fine hair blowing in the breeze. We could see the bronze statue at the entrance, where he'd nearly died.

I unraveled some of my loose bandages and let them stream in the wind. It felt so good that I took of my shirt, carefully avoiding the still-tender scars. I had a number of tiny ones, plus one that spread across my stomach. It was half of Kouichi's, from the time his mother had stabbed him. The two of us had shared everything.

I remembered the pain from when he'd moved the injuries to me. It was horrible, almost unbearable. But whatever it had been, it was only half of what he had carried.

"Here." I said. "This is for you."

I handed him the little dog, and his eyes went wide with surprise. He spent a moment examining it from all angles, then looked up to me. There were tears in his eyes.

"Why are you crying?" I asked him.

"I don't know." He shook his head. "I'm not sad. But I can't stop."

I don't know why Kouichi was given this power. Maybe only the pure of hearts are chosen – those who would gladly sacrifice themselves. It is, literally, the power over life and death, both for him and for others. I don't know where it came from, but I know why he was chosen to receive it.

"Thank you." I said.

He looked puzzled.

_Thank you_, I thought, _for sharing your pain with me. You told me you were an unwanted child, but you were wrong._

The day my mom left, I sat alone in my darkened house and thought, _That's just how the world is._ No matter how far you walk, life is just a long, dirty alley; no matter how many corners you turn, the stench of dead dogs and putrid river will follow. When Sahiho left, it didn't surprise me. Just another turn.

But watching Kouichi, I realized that the world wasn't so bad. I thought there was nothing in the town but rust and junk. I was wrong. Kouichi was the one pure thing that made everything else worthwhile. He was like the speck of divine grace that's inside even the most evil of hearts. Anything so pure is destined to be betrayed, again and again. But in the end, he still saved people. Not just from their wounds, but from the darkness inside them.

He saved me. He could never be unwanted.

Even halved, the injuries and scars we carried were serious. But they were a source of pride for me. Someday, we may move those marks, erase them, but until then I wanted Kouichi to remember that there was someone in the world who was willing to share his pain.

I put my hand in my pocket and gripped the dog collar my dad had let me. Somewhere in the landscape spread in front of me was my mom, and Sahiho. Wherever they were, I hoped they were happy. I didn't feel angry or betrayed. Just calm.

We'd gone through such hard times. There was nowhere left to go but up.

* * *

**The End**

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Okay, first up answering the reviews:

hitomisure who reviewed on April 29, 2008: I don't know what you mean by 'Death' fic, though I have a vague idea of it, but as you may have read, it isn't a fanfic where I would kill off Kouichi or Kouji. I had written this fanfic in hopes of showing what real life is all about. And although we all know that there are hardships and trials in life as well as all those negative things that would make you ask 'Why keep on living?', there are also those beautiful things like love, hope, joy, family, life… the list goes on. I wanted this fanfic to show that despite the raging waves that tries to swallow us up, there is always hope and light and the value of life. I hope I was able to send that message across.

Blonde-Eko who reviewed on April 30, 2008: I would have updated the day I read your review, but as time would not allow it. I wasn't able to, but I did update now, so three cheers for the update and the completion of this story! I hope you liked how this story went out and I'm glad you found the last chapter touching. As for the "evil cliffhanger" I just couldn't stop myself from cutting the chapter there (insert evil laugh)… I thought that it would be a good "dramatic effect" for the story, and I hope I was right about that. Thanks for the words of encouragement again!

As I have stated, as an answer for hitomisure, the reason for writing this fanfic was (apart from that whole experiment deal) to somehow, maybe, show those who are in a similar (in a sense) footing as the characters of the story, that they're not alone and that there is beauty in life. That there is hope.

The last line I have there is one of the quotes I usually tell a friend who is down at the dumps or remind myself when I, myself, am feeling low. Those words are true and you can use it to remind yourselves as well. I made this OC-ish having Kouji and Kouichi not be blood-related since I also wanted to show the power of friendship. In our world today, everyone could use a friend and need a friend – and a true friend at that.

For all the people who read and will read this story, thank you. To all those who added and will add this to their favorite story list, thank you again. I hope that in some way, I have managed to make a fanfic that you all have enjoyed reading and even learned something out of.

With all that said, it is time to close this story, and for me to work on the other fanfics that I have. I may write another First-person POV story in the near future, but it may be a different set of characters, but it will have a slice of life theme in it as well. So, once again, although this is the last chapter, I am hoping that you all would review and tell me what you think of the finale.

This is Sakura Martinez saying "PEACE" and signing out.


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